Aaron Hillis

A wildly creative amusement, thanks mostly to Campbell, whose weathered yet still-taking-care-of-business Elvis is alone worth the price of admission.

Under the clichéd spell of rock-and-roll promiscuity and pills popped, Seigner shows astonishing range as the detached superstar who still fixates on her ex-boyfriend and has mood swings like a manic-depressive on fast-forward.

One-dimensional fluff piece.

The film's convoluted moral trajectory to hell may be as unoriginal as quoting Taxi Driver, and the pervasive violent menace can be needlessly punishing (including a drugged sexual assault), but as stylish, scorched-earth entertainment, it'll get you in its teeth.

All the secrets, lies, and consequences feel as authentic as the Appalachian milieu, but the film lacks the memorable idiosyncrasy of a River's Edge, or more fittingly, the myth-making lyricism of Matewan.

It's rare that a drama shows such specificity with respect to the experience of coping with autism, and that sensitivity goes a long way.

The entertainingly unhinged Hostel reeks of kneeling reverence to the grisliest of psychotronica while simultaneously striving to out-gore and out-shock its predecessors.

A thin sprinkling of exuberance and a couple of choice cameos, that's about all this underwritten and overly choreographed spectacle has to tease us with.

Strikingly shot with some wicked hand-held virtuousity, Assault is rivetingly suspenseful in how it toys with the morals of good guys flip-flopping to the dark side (and vice versa).

It’s all a curious humanist experiment with anecdotal surprises and whimsy, but its motives aren’t in sharp focus like Doyle’s hotshot imagery.

From Oshima’s later career (after one stroke, he made 1999’s Taboo; after two strokes, it’s unclear whether he’ll direct again), most notable is this bilingual, end-of-WWII tearjerker about forgiveness and understanding between cultures, which could have been dubbed The Man Who Fell to Java.

Kazan holds together a decent coming-of-age script that's emotionally sincere if tonally unfocused.

Though it dodders engagingly at its antihero's pace, Remember is not subtle.

When he runs out of material to tickle with, Black dips into his musically tenacious "deedle-diddle-dee" for some sure-fire ridiculousness.

It's an overall heady conceit about image and invention, clever and fun with compelling lead performances -- especially Reynolds, who finally gets to show some chops in a career littered with Van Wilder–grade junk.

Favorably, Atkinson’s family-friendly, rubber-limbed professionalism can revitalize even the most vapid of material, which this certainly is. Anyone who has seen an episode of Black Adder can tell you that he’s leaps and bounds funnier than this sitcom-grade bauble.

Appropriately hunky but neutered of the brute sexuality he exhibited in Bullhead and Rust and Bone, Schoenaerts and his lack of bodice-busting tension with Winslet mirrors the film's transparent, often anachronistic inauthenticity.

This blatantly big-hearted product isn't half as vibrant as the original 2005 Wired article on which it's based, and myopically neglects to address Arizona's troubling anti-immigration legislation through even a splash of hindsight.

Listen up, fanboys and enthusaiasts of sophisticated visual wizardry: this theological noir-horror actioner-a stand-alone, rapturous good time-craftily and accurately captures the straight-faced camp, wry wit and episodic structure of its source material.

The Ten has one foot in "Monty Python's Meaning of Life" and another in their "Life of Brian," but ultimately we get the David Letterman School of Comedy: mediocre jokes continually repeated until they sometimes become uncomfortably funny.

Law owns every scene he’s in--which is literally all of them--plus a decent supporting cast and dapper dialogue truly make for a breezy good time.

There are too many vaguely defined interpersonal dynamics and marginal characters (hi, Liv Tyler and Judy Greer!) that distract needlessly from the earnest tone of an outrageous set-up.

If the banality of life within the Bordeaux gentry is the point, then the ensuing oppressiveness is immaculately depicted through precise performances and camerawork—just don't call it emotionally engaging drama.

What once was a gifted comic's fluid improvisation is now a doddering old man so embarrassing he's uncomfortable to watch, and the surrogate father-daughter needling he has with Johansson is creepy when you realize Woody the director is shooting her seductively in that skintight bathing suit.

Paths collide and allegiances form between the good, bad, and ugly, but under the incoherent direction of Chalerm Wongpim, a clunky dullness sets in whenever the action subsides.

Gilsig's transformation is quietly convincing, but the film itself is flatter and less cinematically gratifying than most television dramas.

Filmed in 2005, the first of two Cusack widower flicks this season (the weepier and more indie "Grace is Gone" hits theaters in December) Martian Child is also a Franken-schmaltz monster of cobbled-together Cusack movie parts.

A riveting urban drama that tackles a myriad of sociopolitical issues -- conflicts of race, sex, class, marriage and politics -- without spreading itself thin.

The real top billing, what audience-goers are obviously shelling out to see, is the computer-generated chaos, and as they should: Digital technology has caught up with our collective imaginations Now More Than Ever.

Not even within earshot of a masterpiece, Man on Fire, based on its ratio of production costs to quality alone, may prove to be the worst movie of 2004.

Fails in what amounts to its only distinct purpose: to smugly push the envelope of depravity farther than anyone else.

This thanklessly watchable film, recut since its mixed Sundance premiere, may not warrant Holden Caulfield’s trademark judgment of phoniness — but, like any clichéd writing, deserves rejection.

Spoiled by its own insatiable desire for envelope-pushing flair; it’s wider-scoped when it should be intimate, splashy instead of subtle, icky but not scary.

Unstylized, inconsistent, unconvincing, and familiar to a fault.

Chan still sounds silly talkin' jive, the action sequences are peppy if not exactly memorable, and the gags have been sitting out long enough to make penicillin.

When the secret is finally divulged, it’s such a letdown that it feels unfairly manipulative to have sat through such agonizing tedium.

Doesn't try to be anything more than a soft-serve pull of treacly pandering.

Jersey Girl may have come from his soul, but it contradicts the charm of a Kevin Smith movie.

Self-taught Kurdish-American filmmaker Jano Rosebiani's mostly English-language drama...is deadened by milquetoast characters, uninspired landscape photography, and no perceptible stakes.

Paycheck is a bogus journey.

Mostly due to the assured polish of cinematographer Sean Stiegemeier, Chapman punches above its featherweight budget, but the punch is ultimately pulled as both strands of the narrative intersect with one last reveal of unresolved melodrama that feels coldly calculated in its cause and effect.

Between the generic shadowy cinematography and a gothic score that manages to telegraph even the film's jump-scares, there's no tangible tension by which to build an effective climax.

The filmmakers blend tones like a child mixing fountain drinks into one unidentifiable flavor.

This terminally ill, terminally awful dramedy marks a sad cinematic milestone: The Bucket List is the first film in history to feature a truly wretched Nicholson performance -- and we're not talking about the character he plays.

This one's been sitting on shelves for two years -- never good news -- and you can almost see the dollar signs in the cast's eyes.

De Niro is constantly upstaged by the showstopping, sunburnt duo of Streisand and Hoffman, but even their material is so recycled (more Focker puns, etc.) that it doesn’t matter who steals the most chuckles.

Since the conversation is unfocused and there's no real thesis, we get a girl and a gun but not really a movie.

A sadistically bland entertainment that oversells its reveals and lets its suspense drip so long that it would be nice if something (anything!) happened.

The narrative strikes a mostly sensible (if overly earnest) ratio of inner-turmoil human theater to B-movie monster hunt, before ultimately tilting toward the classic drive-in with climactic siege action and old-school effects.

What begins as a pleasantly utilitarian thriller gradually decays into a mediocre suspense drama and ends as an irritatingly feeble love story.

From less a purist's standpoint than a seeker of serviceable junk food, this comprehensive waste of time is too bouncy to be an "Elektra" bummer, but should make Marvel mascot Stan Lee think twice about burning another lucrative bridge with unintentional hilarity.

Flashy, forgettable fluff.

For his fourth paycheck-cashing run through “J-Bruck’s” action-hero gauntlet, Cage lazily plays Benjamin Franklin Gates-the first of many overstuffed social-studies references.

Overlong and slack in suspense, the film is most noteworthy for its patchy accents and the late Ellen Albertini Dow (the "rapping granny" from The Wedding Singer).

With his latest, the sci-fi–action–adventure The Chronicles of Riddick, Vin Diesel has established himself as the new face of morally ambiguous anti-heroes.

Bernard Rose's elegantly staged but tonally flat biopic embraces the myth, even underscoring Paganini's rising fame, scandalous hedonism, and womanizing as an anachronistic form of rock-star fantasy.

Big and dumb and loud and entirely past its prime.

The film is as shallow as its characters' oversexed conversations.

Are these iconic, antihero relics smartly satirized in a post-slasher, or is FVJ just more dated, third-wave trash? Disappointingly, it's the latter.

Blunderingly out-of-touch, star-studded embarrassment of a sequel.

So go on, pay your ten bucks and get your hate on.

No bodices were harmed in veteran French filmmaker Patrice Leconte's chaste and bloodless English-language debut.

It's an exploitation film that never gets its audience off, even with cheap thrills — what a dud.

Lacks thrills, narrative, emotion, believability, character development--and frankly--watchability.

Jim Sturgess, Sam Worthington, and True Blood's Ryan Kwanten co-star in this glossy, lifelessly paced edition as three of the criminals, though their underwritten personas and motivations are fairly interchangeable.

The dubious whimsy, devoid of any directorial voice, plays more like a very special episode of Dawson’s Creek.

Lazy, schmaltzy, and on-the-nose from its Hallmark-friendly production design to its rancid pop-music cues and naive dialogue.

From an audience perspective, the title’s fairly apt as well.

A clumsy, dreadfully preposterous and pedestrian thriller that seems to believe loud noises are the same as good frights.

It’s terrible enough to torture the damned.

The overall comic premise is both clumsy and truly icky, because how exactly do you make progressive good on a "parody of violence against women" logline?

There's very little to distinguish this from every other characterless rom-com with a demographically marketable hook.

Attempts to transform meet-cute romance into an absurdist fatal-attraction thriller, but ends up neither fish nor fowl.

It’s all rather implausible, as is how all those cinema luminaries Barenholtz once nurtured seem to have no impact on his style-free storytelling.

With its cheap scares, its defiant lack of special effects, and the most blatant usage of a red coat as a stand-out prop since Schindler’s List, Godsend is as much an experiment-gone-wrong as its Frankensteinesque plot.

Not to chastise the movie for simply being rude or crude -- since "The Wedding Crashers" proved that hormone-raging '80s throwbacks can still be harmless fun -- but this contemptible sex-com redux should be taken to task for how its infantilized yucks give license to entertaining closed-minded acceptances of very real human ugliness.

The final leg of director Cathy Garcia-Molina's exceptionally broad, partly English-dubbed cockles-warmer of a trilogy outright apes Hollywood rom-com formulas with a personality so affably lobotomized it wouldn't dare frighten delicate tastes.

Attempts to offer the white-knuckle gratifications of a studio procedural with a conspicuous lack of production values, screen talent, plausibility, originality, or a lick of aesthetic flair.

Canadian comedy hits rock bottom in this abhorrent meta-infomercial.

Filmmaker Maria Ilioú's uninspired flake of talking-head Wikipedia cinema focuses on the forgotten Anatolian port city's post-World War I years.

A rich, artful quartet of shorts mirroring the diverse idiosyncrasies of four significant auteurs.

The line between creative ambition and risky obsession is sharply drawn—or rather, carved out of New Mexico sandstone—in the life and work of wholly motivated artist Ra Paulette.

Director-producer Florian Steinbiss's German-set, largely German-cast comedy mixes genres with all the quality control of a fourth-grader dispensing every soda flavor into one cup.

Too madcap or not self-serious enough to be called transgressive, Moritsugu's degenerate romp splits the tonal difference between Nick Zedd and John Waters.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean your speculations are sound, your writing and filmmaking skills are passable, or that you're preaching to anyone but the fearfully converted.

It's the very definition of direct-to-video schlock.

There's no bite to the criminality, the motives, the acting, or filmmaking to make us care.

Come for the cult of personality, stay for the nostalgia of a dirtier, dodgier, far cooler scene.

Elegantly shot to emphasize the suffocating atmosphere of its believably frightening scenario, the film speaks clearly about generational expectations and the disintegration of the middle class, even when the brothers communicate without using words.

Viko Nikci's undeniably poignant doc surprisingly chooses to follow threads of hope and forgiveness over the angers of injustice.

The footage relies more on idealistic testimonies than a cinematic experience showcasing DBA's vitality.